


Darkness Knows You Well

by Hattingmad



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: EmetWoL Week (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Multi, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch Needs a Hug, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch needs Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:27:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26457169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hattingmad/pseuds/Hattingmad
Summary: Compilation of pieces for your shipping needs. Some sexy, some fluffy, some sad.1. Wol naps. Emet broods. Angsty.2. Ascian crack.3. Elidibus/Wol hug.4. 2nd-person.5. Rak'tika.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light/Estinien Wyrmblood, Haurchefant Greystone/Warrior of Light, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 13
Kudos: 85





	1. A world with one pulse

A little known-fact about the Warrior of Light and Darkness, but an open secret to all the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, is that she can, and does, sleep _anywhere._ As a consequence of being pulled to and fro saving countries and worlds from disaster at any given moment of any given day, she can't remember the last time she had a full night's sleep, and will often rent chocobo porters simply so she can get some shut-eye on the way to wherever she is going, trusting the bird will get itself there while she dozes in the saddle. Every Scion has been privy to a heavy head falling on their shoulder or lap at a meeting, conference, or simply around the dinner table. Urianger, in particular, is often found with a napping Warrior in his lap, as his lanky Elezen form and soothing low voice puts her right out. The other Scions tease him about his droning lectures being a sleep aid, but privately bicker about her seeming favoritism toward the astrologian.

And so it is that when the Ascian, Emet-Selch, joins their party, he finds himself with a dozing Miqo'te curled around him under the branches of a tree in the Greatwood, and several irate traveling companions threatening him with bodily harm in hushed tones should he move so much as a muscle. 

"I have things to do," he hisses, "that do not involve being a _pillow_ for your little group of misfits! Besides which, I find it difficult to believe or conscience you allowing her to sleep with, and let us not mince words, the _enemy_!"

Thancred cocks his gunblade and furiously whispers back, "you will let her _have_ this. She hasn't slept in _days_."

"And whose fault is that, exactly?! Not mine, I should wager," the Ascian begins, but is silenced in short order by the sound of Alisaie sliding her mage's rapier out of its scabbard. He grumpily rearranges his skirts and settles back against the trunk, sending a withering look to the Miqo'te until the Scions have all dispersed with the warning that the Crystal Exarch will surely be watching should he try anything, and a (he is fairly certain) sarcastic "welcome to the party".

He waits a moment after that, then slowly attempts to extricate himself from the position in which he has found himself.

Instantly, she whines softly in her sleep and tugs one of his arms to her, pillowed between her breasts, as she tosses a leg over his lap in claim.

"Nooo...comfywarm..."

He sighs in exasperation and not a little unwanted arousal at the sensation of his arm pinned into her bountiful bosom. He will not be this _weak._

"Y'smellniiiiiice," she slurs, and, snuggling deeper, promptly passes out again.

By Zodiark, she is still just the same underneath it all, loathe as he is to admit it. His Persephone never hesitated to inconvenience him this way, either, and he never had the heart to move her then. Still doesn't.

It cannot matter to his plans, who she is, what the color of her soul means. It cannot matter. She is mortal. She will die, is dying already. It is only a matter of time, now, and they are so _close_ to succeeding, here on the First. And yet.

And yet.

Deeply annoyed with himself, he _snaps_ , removing his coat and placing it around her instead, settling in for a long afternoon of monitoring her continued health as she slumbers. All seems as well as it can be, with that infestation of Light simmering inside her. But since he is being so good, perhaps a taste--? She won't notice, surely.

A tendril of his aether reaches toward her, toward the brilliant blue he can see--has always seen--so clearly, and he stifles a gasping sob when he feels her _reach back_ , winding around his small offering and mingling with it, _just as she used to_ , her physical body starting to purr even as her soul is a balm to all his ancient hurts. So long. It has been _so long_ since he has felt this sensation, since he has been _complete_ , and even though he knows, he _knows_ she is not whole, is only shards of her former self, it is still more than he has known in twelve thousand _long_ years and his fingers clutch at her, greedy, so greedy, he has always wanted so much more than he deserves.

Damn what he deserves. 

He won't let go.

He _won't._

"Mine," he whispers, electricity rocketing through him at finally being able to say it again, and he shudders. Their damnable Exarch likely finds him perverted, witnessing this--and, well, he _is_ , but not right now. Later, perhaps...

He turns to tuck his chin atop her head, breathing in the scent of her hair.

She even _smells_ the same, now, her bergamot mingling with his sandalwood to create the scent that is uniquely _them,_ and he burns with the need to spirit her away from all this, keep her safe, hold her close and pin her down and make love to her until she forgets all about her silly quest and her idiot 'companions' and can see and feel nothing but him, him, _him!_

She sighs and presses closer against his side, tightening her hold on his arm in sleepy possession, and it just barely manages to cage the beast inside him that _roars_ for her, but it is a close thing, a near, near thing.

He cannot do this.

He has to flee, to recover, to stay far _away_ from her lest he ruin everything they have worked for, lest he make the mistake--

This woman, this Warrior, is not _her._ Not Azem, not the Fourteenth, not his Persephone. She cannot be. She is a shard, only a shard, only mortal. He cannot, will not, grieve the deaths of these lesser creatures, these malformed misfits.

He fades from the physical plane, leaving her to doze alone beneath the boughs of the great oak.

Dozing...under his coat.


	2. New Game?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5.3 Spoilers, New Game Plus crack!au, The Unsundered + Nabriales being idiots. Ascian cuddle puddle.

"Lahabrea. Honored Speaker of the Convocation. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

She can see he's speechless, his lips contorting beneath his mask, uncertain if he should fight or demand answers.

"Shall I go on? Zodiark's chosen, one of the Unsundered. Ascian. Amaurotine. Colleague. Friend." 

His claw-tipped glove flexes at his side, and she takes pity on him, withdrawing the orange crystal of her Unsundered self--of Azem--the one thing she had managed to take with her as she skipped backward like a stone in time, rewinding through each battle, each death, each defeat--to now. Here. This. Ifrit's crystal at her feet, Hydaelyn's blessing straining to reach her, and she steps on it as she extends her soul stone to him.

"Would you call them? Emet-Selch and Elidibus? I should very much like to see them again. It has been...a long and difficult journey to reach you. I must apologize for taking so long." 

"No stone for the Fourteenth was ever created," Lahabrea chokes out. "This...this _forgery_ \--"

"I--would tell you more, but I think--" 

She pales, her aether twisting with agony, frayed at the edges from the impossible trip she has taken, and she staggers forward, falling into all-encompassing darkness.

* * *

  
Murmurs lap against her ears like waves as she floats in a starless sky. 

The sound of something being slapped.

"Nabriales! You cannot just _poke_ her like a savage--"

"What, she looks soft and her ears are so _fluffy_ ; it's not like she ever has to _know_. You never let me have any fun."

"Why did you wake me up for this--"

A muffled *thump* and a gasp.

"That color--it cannot be--Seph?"

"So she _is_ Azem. Liddy, I was right, pay up."

"I do not recall ever engaging in something so crude as _betting_ with you on the matter, Nabriales."

"Look, I said I bet she is, and you did that scoffing-Emissary thing, and _then_ I said 'and I bet she makes gramps cry, double or nothing', and look who's sobbing in the corner!"

"Emet-Selch, do get up. You're humiliating yourself."

" _Seph..."_

"You're just mad cuz I won. Uh, Speaker?"

"Yes?"

"You gonna let go of her any time soon?" 

"No. I found her first."

"Kinda sounds like she found _you,_ though? No, don't stab me, I'm just _saying_ -" 

"Everyone shut up, she's waking up."

She blinks, struggling to focus on her surroundings, and at first all she can see is a violet-black expanse-- _the rift?_ , she wonders--and then her other senses return, slowly. She's leaning, propped up against silk, embroidery scratching her cheek slightly. Someone is holding her hand. The space smells of nutmeg and cloves, sandalwood and cinnamon, petrichor throughout. 

Someone grumbles, " _he_ gets to poke her. 'S not fair. Sundered discrimination, 's what this is."

"He's holding her _hand_ , not jabbing her with a stick, there is a _difference_ , you idiot child--"

Her fingers flutter and squeeze around the hand in hers. She breathes and waits for the face hovering before her to resolve itself--a glyph in red, a mask, a curl of hair.

"Hello, Hades," she says softly, and then she's being sandwiched between her current bed and a second set of robes as the honorable Emet-Selch attempts to squeeze the life out of her with a spine-creaking embrace.

"Zodiark, Seph, it _is_ you..."

"Yes." She brings up her free hand to rub circles on his back, before rolling her head to the side and catching the attention of the white-robed Ascian.

"Can't breathe, Liddy, little help? Sundered mortal body, asphyxiating slowly-"

"Azem." He fixes her with a stern gaze. "I believe this is what you mortals would call reaping your 'just desserts'."

"You can't seriously still be holding onto that thing with the volcano? Besides, if anyone should be mad about it--" 

She feels her vision going spotty and blurry around the edges and wheezes, and Emet-Selch loosens, but does not relinquish, his grip. 

"C'mon, Liddy, join the cuddle puddle," she says cheerfully, and the Emissary splutters. 

"That is the most undignified-- I have _never_ \--"

"There was that one time in the Third Umbral Era," Nabriales chimes in, and Elidibus hisses back, 

"we do not speak of the Third Umbral Era." 

"How are you _back_ , anyway?" Emet-Selch finally interrupts, having evidently held back the question as long as he possibly could. "You're supposed to be ignorant and blind like the rest of these half-men, and you're not whole, I can see your ragged edges, but--but you're _you_ , and..." He squints. "You have one too many shards, as a matter of fact."

She chuckles.

"That's at the end of a very long story."

* * *

"I'm sorry, I possessed _who_ now?"

"Yeesh, I thought you had better taste than that, Speaker."

"I raised you to your position and I can un-raise you just as easily, so help me Nabriales..."

Ah. She loves these idiots. Truly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if I'll write more of this or if I can even take it seriously. I regret nothing.


	3. That would be enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5.3, Elidibus and the WOL share a moment. Canon-compliant, missing-scene, sad.

The Emissary takes the skin of her second-self, her constant unseen companion, the man who is her twin in suffering, her soul--oh, Ardbert--and though she knows it is sacrilege, the man's indignation at the affront writhing under her skin as so many serpents, she cannot deny this Ascian. Not now. Not ever again, and she has lost so much. They have both lost so much. She will not lose this. So when he drops the facade, admits to his ploy, she chokes out, "could I speak with you? Alone? Please." 

And he, for his part, he is curious enough to follow, safe in his superiority, even now, after she has wrought destruction upon his fellow Unsundered. But then, this is who Elidibus has become. Not the sweet and innocent youth, baby of the Convocation, roped into too many schemes, all to Hades' disappointment and exasperation. No, this is the man who became the heart of a god. For his people. For his duty. Who has manipulated civilizations throughout history, who tips the scales even now toward his version of balance. He must expect admonishment, perhaps even an attack. At the very least, he must expect the newly-minted and sorely-tried Warrior of Darkness to pelt him with questions to which he has few answers, fewer still that he would be willing to give.

He does not, then, expect her to throw her arms around him and weep into his neck, this much is certain. His surprise translates to a form frozen stiff and solid, an icicle in Coerthas, but then, shocking them both, he melts, sagging into her, boneless and clinging. And she can only think of how long it must have been, so very long, since someone has touched him with love, with affection, even in this borrowed flesh.

"I'm so sorry I forgot you, even for a moment," she whispers into his skin, confessions never meant to see the light of day.  
"Forgive me." Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

She weeps for the dead, for all they have lost. For what is yet to come.

"I don't want to lose you."

"I know."

"I don't want to fight you."

"I know."

"But, the Mother Crystal, She-"

He sighs, breath ruffling her hair, and noses against her with the beak of his mask.

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

She will be forced to fight him. And though she no longer wishes for battle, she will win. She can do nothing else. And he, too, will be gone, and it is unbearable.

But for now, she can hold him.

And though they both know this will change nothing, for the moment, it is, and it must be... enough.


	4. Salvatori

You want and you want and you want and there is never enough time for all your wanting, and even as your very being cracks to pieces, drowned in all-consuming _light,_ your own aether reaches out toward the soothing blanket of oh-so-familiar darkness, greedily pushing itself into the cracks it finds and drowning in the solace of shadows, the blissful surcease of agony, and the tension bleeds from your physical form as you weep astral-tinged tears of relief.

"Child of light," someone says above you, scoffing, disdainful, "how your Mother would grieve to see you cling so to her enemy. Should you not beg Her to save you, now, in your hour of need?"

"Y'shtola, she--" you struggle to speak through a tongue gone numb. 

"Said if we hurry, I could still play my part. My role." The words are so bitter you choke. 

You'll be done, soon, and you suppose there is some relief in that. But there is betrayal, too, seeded deep, and it is that which spurs you to speak again.

"They're going...to let me die. After everything I've done. I thought...we were friends."

"Well, of course you are dying. All of you mortals hurl yourselves every moment closer to the grave."

You attempt to shoot him a withering look, and he concedes, "but yes, I take your point. And yet, what things you have done, what a grand mess you've made of all my plans. Feel proud. Never has there been such a thorn in my side. A veritable budding leaf, are you not? Restoring the spring of life to these stagnant, deadened lands. Hope for the hopeless, peace for the weary, shepherding the souls of the dead to their eternal rest," he says, gesturing grandiosely around him, and you bite back a laugh at his antics, despite the pain. Your eye-roll is almost fond.

"Just call me Persephone," you mutter under your breath, and _instantly_ Emet-Selch is before you, gloved fingers digging into your shoulders so hard you almost reach for the chakrams before you realize you aren't under attack in the traditional sense. 

"What did you just-- say that again," he hisses, low, urgent, and there is something so heavily weighted in his gaze that all thoughts of toying with him, teasing him, flee.

Your tongue darts out to whet suddenly-dry lips, and he tracks the movement, so avid, and you _feel_ it. You are hovering on a precipice, any movement could teeter this knife-edge balance and send you spiralling down into the dark, into _him._ If you speak, something will change, irrevocably. Nothing will ever be the same. You will fall, into that place where nothing is forbidden and all is permitted. You are dying anyway, and what little is left of you is so very weary.

You cannot say it.

You must not say it.

You take a breath.

"Call me Persephone," you repeat, and the world falls away.


	5. Greatwood

You wouldn't know it to look at her now, but the Warrior of Light and Darkness was a Vii, once. She feels a pang of something like homesickness, looking at them, but this isn't the Source, and she could never go back to her village, regardless. She doesn't regret the change, exactly, but this shorter body did take some getting used to. Still. Viis live so long--too long, if she's being honest. The thought of being forced into this role for the next millennium, her legend growing and expanding until she's responsible for all the shards, probably, and then someone summons a primal of her...it terrified her. So a Miqo'te she became, and if part of her wished she would be unrecognizable to her allies after the change, well, she'll never tell. But watching the Viiis makes her ache, nonetheless, and having Y'shtola back is...wonderful, of course. A miracle. And it happened so easily, just a _snap_ of a finger--then another and she is clothed, and everyone seems to take it for granted, ignoring the Ascian responsible for their incredible good fortune, for their miracle, as they huddle around her, then usher her away. She lingers next to him as they go, waiting to catch his eye before speaking.

"Thank you."

He starts to sneer, starts to say that it was nothing, but she silences and surprises him by reaching up and cupping her palm against his cheek.

"No. I mean it. I'm grateful. _Thank_ you."

His eyes close, briefly, and he exhales on a rough sigh. Does she feel him press his face slightly into her hand, chasing the contact? That would be absurd. An immortal Ascian, as hungry for a kind touch as herself?

_You're losing it. Get a grip before he turns you into a newt, or something._

But he doesn't pull away immediately, and she dares a little more, fingers splaying ever so minutely, the tips of her digits stretching less than an ilm to reach the bruise-purple half-moons under his eyes. His skin is so _delicate_ there, so _soft_ , and gods, she wants to _pet_ him, to swipe her thumb gently forth and back and oh, she's doing it, matching thought to action. Some long-buried instinct in her is telling her to be gentle with him, that he would never harm her, that he could rip a thousand worlds asunder and he would still shield her from pain if he could. She doesn't know why she's thinking like this. 

His eyes flutter open and they are _shining,_ the most beautiful luminous molten gold, and she knows, irrationally, that she could just shove her fingers into his hair and _tug_ and he would _keen_ for her, he's done it before, he--

Wait.

What?

How does she--

He sees her confusion, and his hands clench into tight balls at his sides as Lyra thinks--no, these aren't her thoughts. Are they?

_Don't think about it. Just stay with me, darling, a little while longer, and enjoy this. It doesn't have to mean anything. Stay._

She blinks, thoughts slow as honey syrup, and forgets whatever was perplexing her as Emet-Selch wraps gloved fingers around her other wrist, the one unoccupied, and leads it to his hair. It feels as soft as it looks, like silk, and she cards her fingers through it, fascinated, lightly scratching her nails at his scalp just to see what happens. He looks like someone punched him in the gut, yet he's coming back for more. A drowning man who could still drink the sea.

He turns his face to breathe, warm and wet, against her palm, before catching one of her fingers between his teeth. He nips at it lightly, then sucks it between his lips, into the hot cavern of his mouth, laving it with his tongue with a dedicated study. She bites her lower lip, cheeks coloring rolanberry red as she swallows down a whimper, but he hears her, all the same.

She vaguely expects mockery, but he just smiles, slow and sinful and _satisfied_ , and brushes a kiss across her knuckles before stepping backward and vanishing into darkness.

The imprint of his lips on her skin lingers like a brand, and something has _happened_ here. Something of import.

If only she could figure out _what._


End file.
